The burning of an abandoned farmhouse outside of Ocklawaha

My grandfather was there, on the farm when Ma Barker and her gang
were gunned down-
no, not all of them-
she could have
escaped by an open basement window,
crawled through the drainage ditch
and stolen my great Uncle's
Ford truck.

Because my Grandfather, who had been my great Uncle's brother,
swears that he saw her again, after the war,
at the counter of a George Webb
in Cudahy.

She disappeared past a man reading a newspaper
leaving behind fifty cents
and the scent of black powder.

The old white house,
where the farmer kept an almanac
of what grew best on which acres,
which months carried the most rain
and in which years the soil would be hardest-packed,
burned to the ground after being abandoned
for twenty years.

Who needs a farm
so filled with bullet holes
that it can't hold water?

His almanac
filled with weather
the heights of his fields
and the names of imaginary children
was reduced to black powder
and the scent of charred pine.

My Grandfather was there,
when the Barker gang was gunned down-
no, not all of them-
but they had said that
nobody had escaped. Because,

You can't escape bullet holes
the best course of action was to escape bullets
altogether.
His brother's wife, who looked an awful like lot
Ma Barker
had baked a pie,
and had it cooling at the window.
She thought it was odd, the way the bushes jumped
as if shoved from behind by a large man,
and thought that there was heavy rain falling on the side of the house.

By the time my great Uncle reached the kitchen,
Ma Barker's gang and my great Aunt
were dead.